The Restall Road gate to access the equestrian park opens at 6.30 am and is closed at 6 pm during the winter season and 8 pm in summer – except Wednesdays when the Woodhill Mountain Bike Park opens till 10 pm.

Summer hours start 30 September 2018.

Vehicles left in the forest after hours will be towed at the owner’s expense or a release fee will be charged by security – First Security 0800 277 697

BEEHIVES

There are commercial beehives in the horse park. If you intend to ride and have an anaphylactic reaction to bee stings, we advise you to bring your EpiPen with you.

KAITIAKI

Ngā Maunga Whakahii o Kaipara welcome the continued use of designated parts of Woodhill Forest by the equestrian community, through the Kake Hōiho operations. Equestrian access to the forest requires a current membership registration or a casual registration for the day. Registered riders will be provided with an access key and an ID card or receipt, which must be carried at all times when riding in the forest. If you are found in the park/forest without an ID card or receipt, you will be asked to leave and risk being trespassed. Forest Kaitiaki/Wardens are patrolling the park/forest, if you are riding without our company vests you could be approached by them for proof of registration.

NURSERY
If you are interested in hiring the Nursery cabin/campsite, please see the form below for details – you will need to check with reception for availability.

Complete a casual rider form online (click on Casual Entry below) and submit it with proof of your payment to our bank account – the confirmation page from your internet banking provider or a screenshot of the transaction.

If you prefer to scan and email a form, with proof of payment, to kake@kaiparamoana.com please download a Casual Rider Form here.

When you send in a form, we process it then email it to you with your receipt. If you need a key, you can collect it from the office on your way to the horse park. You must display the processed form (signed by us) on the dashboard of your vehicle and carry the receipt on you while you are riding.

If you are arranging a weekend ride we need your submission by 4 pm Friday as we are not open on the weekend. We have lock-boxes outside our office building for access to horse park keys outside office hours.

All riders must wear a hi-viz vest while riding in the horse park. When possible, please borrow a vest with our Kake Hōiho logo on it from the office.

The currently available membership to Te Ngahere o Woodhill is a 12 month membership and runs from 1 October 2018 to 30 September 2019.

It is $299 for an adult and $99 to ad a child (under 16).

It is a condition of membership that riders wear a hi-viz vest with the Kake Hōiho logo on it while in the horse park. We sell the vests at the office for $26 or you can take your own hi-viz to Brand-It Plus Ltd in Huapai. They will print the Kake Hōiho logo onto your vest, for $12.50 + gst, if you show them your ID card or receipt.

You can register for membership in the following ways:

At the office during office hours – 9 am to 5 pm Monday to Friday.

By submitting a membership registration form online:
1. Click on the MEMBERSHIP icon below
2. Complete the form and then submit it with your photograph, also the photographs of added children if applicable, and proof of your payment – the confirmation page from your internet banking provider or a screenshot of the transaction.

Or you can download a form here, complete and sign it then email to kake@kaiparamoana.com with proof of payment and your photograph(s).

We will process your form and notify you via email when your key and other membership items are ready to collect.

Please note that we do not post forest keys. They must be collected from the Restall Road office, 9 am to 5 pm Monday to Friday, or by prior arrangement for a weekend collection from one of our lock-boxes (conditions apply). Contact the office for further information – 09 420 9566 ext 1 or kake@kaiparamoana.com

All keys must be returned at the end of the membership period – please see TERMS AND CONDITIONS.

A new key will not be issued to returning members unless the old key is returned or the lost-key fee of $100 is paid.

Riders under 16 must be supervised by a responsible adult rider for the duration of their ride. This applies to members and to casual riders. Keys will not be issued to riders under the age of 16.

New keys can be collected from Monday 1 October 2018

For those who cannot make it to the office during the first week of the new membership period, we will open from 9 am to 1 pm on Saturday 6 October 2018 and Sunday 7 October 2018 for the collection of keys.

Riders not following the terms and conditions could have their memberships suspended or cancelled and/or be asked to leave the horse park.

All riders must be registered, either as members or casual riders.

All riders must wear a riding helmet when riding in the forest.

All riders must wear a hi-viz vest when riding in the forest.

All members must wear a hi-viz vest with the Kake Hōiho logo on it when riding in the forest.

Casual riders are to borrow a hi-viz vest with our logo on it, from the office, when possible.

Riders must have a current ID card or receipt with them at all times – you could be asked to leave the forest if you cannot show a current ID card or receipt.

Horse riding is only permitted on the marked horse park trails.

Riders are required to have a tag on the saddle or bridle with a contact name and number, in the event that the horse gets lost or separated from the rider in the forest.

Please notify us immediately of any missing or loose horses in the horse park. Alert Kake Hōiho staff if they are present on site or call the office 09 420 9566, during business hours. Outside of business hours please call First Security 0800 347 787 or forest security 027 535 5770.

All riderless horses must be led by and tethered to a mounted rider and be under control at all times.

Vehicle access is permitted to the car park within the licenced area only.

All vehicles and horse floats entering the car park must have a current WOF and registration.

A Vehicle Parking Permit sticker must be clearly displayed on all member vehicles.

A processed Casual Rider Form must be displayed on the dashboard of all casual rider vehicles.

Lock the main gate and all other gates immediately after use. Unlocked gates provide unauthorised access and are unsafe.
Throughout the year parts of the forest are grazed. Please ensure that all grazing gates are also kept closed, to stop cattle wandering on the roads.

Horse park keys that have been allocated to members are for the use of the member they have been allocated to exclusively. Members can bring registered casual riders into the park with them but cannot give out their key for another rider to access the park independently of them.

Memberships run to the 30th of September annually and all keys must be returned at the end of the membership period.

Riders under 16 must be supervised by a registered adult rider.

No keys or memberships are issued to riders under 16 (children). However, they can be added to the membership of an adult rider who will be responsible for them.

No accompanying pedestrians, riders only.

At times the park could be closed due to forest events that may compromise the safety of riders and their horses.

Access could be restricted during high fire risk periods or during times of high winds. We endeavour to notify all riders of any changes to access, so please monitor announcements on woodhillforest.co.nz

The forest is a working production forest and has year-round harvesting and other forestry activity. We will endeavour to notify all riders of forestry activities that will impact the use of the horse park. Please adhere to all warning signage, there is no access to areas that have been taped off.

Logging trucks and other light and heavy vehicles are using the forest roads and they have right of way – extra care is required when crossing roads within the forest.

Kake Hōiho members: You can use your keys to come in through the Coast Rd gates from Muriwai – you must secure the gates behind you. If you are with casual riders, they must be carrying a receipt to show they have paid the casual rider fee. After the ford over Ōkiritoto Stream, you must get off Coast Rd and enter the 5-mile-strip if you wish to continue north. You cannot stay on Coast Rd or enter Woodhill Forest to the east of Coast Rd between the ford and Inland Road (where the new trail to the horse park begins), or from Inland Road to Old Telephone Track where the 5-mile-strip ends.

No access to the dune areas north of the 5-mile-strip beyond Old Telephone Track.

Dogs are welcome in the forest with you, but they must be under full control at all times and tied up when in the car park.

Smoking is prohibited when riding in the forest.

Memberships run to the 30th of September annually, riders will then need to re-register for a new membership.

All old keys must be returned at the end of the membership period, a new key will not be issued otherwise.

Lost keys will incur a replacement cost of $100.

Horse gate locks are changed on the 1st of October each year.

Horse riding is a high-risk activity. When you ride in Te Ngahere o Woodhill you do so at your own risk so please keep aware of the hazardous environment. If you identify a hazard, please report it to the office by calling 094209566 or email: kake@kaiparamoana.com

Vehicles left in the forest after hours will be towed at the owner’s expense or a release fee will be charged by First Security 0800 277 697

Daylight saving began 30 September 2018 and the Restall Road gate to access the horse park is opened at 6.30 am and closed at 8 pm for the summer season.
The locks on the horse park gates (Restall/Boundary Road, Muriwai, McDonald’s Farm) were changed on the 1st of October 2018.
Please return all old keys to the office. New keys can be collected from Monday 1 October 2018.
Office hours are 9 am to 5 pm Monday to Friday.

There will be forestry operations on the Coast Road pedestrian easement, just past the ford at Ōkiritoto Stream, between Cable Road and Pulpit Road from Thursday 20 September 2018. These operations will be ongoing, Monday to Friday, for the next 4 – 6 weeks. Logging trucks will be coming from Restall to Inland to Pulpit to Coast to Cable Roads and back the same way. Please exercise caution if you are riding in the area and check for trucks before crossing forest roads.

The map below shows the trails that have been cleared for riding highlighted in orange.
If you come across hazards while you are riding please notify us at kake@kaiparamoana.com, via messenger, or phone 09 420 9566 ext. 1 during office hours with a description of where you encountered the hazard (the name of the track, type of hazard, photo if possible).

RIDERS – please remember that Woodhill Forest is an operational forest. Riding in close proximity to harvesting areas compromises not only the safety of the rider but also that of the operators. If you are found riding in a harvesting area your membership could be revoked. You can cross forest roads but you cannot ride along them.

BEEHIVES

There are commercial beehives in the horse park. If you intend to ride and have an anaphylactic reaction to bee stings, we advise you to bring your EpiPen with you.

Our recent clarification of the ways to access the Horse Park from Muriwai has generated lots of commentary on our Facebook page and other social media forums.

Although this topic has been addressed before via our website, Facebook, newspapers, pamphlets and in public forums, we’ll present some key information again now.

In 2013 Ngā Maunga Whakahii o Kaipara (NMWoK, the ‘corporate’ entity representing Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara) purchased the land under Woodhill Forest from the Crown as part of our Treaty of Waitangi settlement. The land then became privately owned. The primary reason for purchasing the land was a commercial investment to fund the hapū’s social, educational, cultural and health programmes.

As private land, there is no obligation on NMWoK to provide access to the public – just as there is no public right to roam on the private land any of us own, our homes.

Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara has for centuries now welcomed new people into our region – even when for periods of time we became marginalised and dispossessed. We understand and value the development of a strong community and will play our part. The various activities we run or licence within Woodhill (e.g. Bike Park, Tree Adventures, off-roading / dirt biking, paintball) give opportunities to the public to enjoy the forest – whilst contributing to the commercial return we expected when we decided to purchase it. However unquestionably the most significant activity in the forest is forestry, which we both licence and now, increasingly, participate in as a joint venture partner. Forestry is a high-risk industry and the forest is a workplace. Other mobile businesses such as firewood collection also use the forest. One-off events are increasingly common. There is even a live-firing weapons range at the northern end of the forest and military exercises at times outside of that area. We have strict obligations on us as the landowner, landlord and now forestry company to keep this workplace, and all within it, safe as required under legislation. The new health and safety legislation that came into force this year (2016) is much tighter than the old and sets out massive penalties for our senior staff and board members should an incident occur and our processes be found lacking. This encourages caution. We know other organisations with similar responsibilities to us are grappling with how to manage their obligations in a sensible way. You may well see a range of responses but no-one wants to be the test case for a prosecution under the new legislation. Our tenant businesses are as conscious as we are of their organisational risks operating in the forest. We need to take their concerns into account in how we manage the forest.

So, for now, having taken legal advice, discussed these matters in depth with our tenants and business partners, and considering our own appetite for risk (especially those in positions of authority for us who would face fines into the millions should we be convicted of a failing under health and safety legislation), our cautious position is that the public may only access Woodhill Forest by permit, or in one of the licenced activity areas. For horse-riders, this means the exclusive horse park area, the boundary of which is described as the ‘perimeter trail’ on your maps. As registered riders, we know we have your details should we need to contact you. We know you have been informed of the dangers in the forest and made aware of where to find information on changing situations in the forest (e.g. areas that are out of bounds because of harvesting activity). We know the area within which you will be found (and importantly where you should not be, therefore where we could then permit other activity). The same can be said of all the other licensed activities we sanction in the forest. This knowledge and ability to exert control and keep things safe are absent when we don’t know who is in the forest, doing what and where. Managing this mosaic of use takes a lot of staff time and attention – and so there is a cost to this. There is also a limit to the complexity of use that we believe we can actually keep track of across all 12 500 hectares of the forest and keep everyone within safe to a reasonable standard. Only we out of all the businesses/groups/individuals that access and use the forest can appreciate and need to know, everything that is happening in it every day. Thus, we reserve the right to only permit what we believe we can safely manage. We will continue to make use of tools like media, signage, pamphlets, our kaitiaki educators, and trespass to discharge our responsibilities and preserve our own rights.

Constructive feedback is welcome but we will continue to take a precautionary approach that allows us to feel we are discharging our duty of care to ourselves and our workers, our tenants and business partners, and our customers. Over time we will make changes to the forest regime as experience, understanding and the mosaic of activities change. Some of these may be less restrictive, some may prove to need to be more restrictive.

We came to help with the working bee in the Five Mile Strip, knowing that we are encouraging people to use that as a way to reach the Horse Park from Muriwai. It was good to confirm on the ground that it can be used by riders. We are also working with Council in other ways to encourage the improvement of this area for use by horse-riders.

Going into the new horse-riding season this spring, we are intending to allow the use by registered horse riders of some trails between the exclusive horse park (southern boundary Wightman Way) and Muriwai. This is reliant on us getting those trails up to spec by then and getting in place a system of which riders can effectively be warned if these need to be closed from time to time (e.g. for harvesting or other events that may be taking place). The intention is that generally only horse-riders will be using those trails, but the area may still be offered up for use for another activity / event from time to time – in which case other access may need to be restricted.

Eke Hōiho will change its name at that time to ‘Kake Hōiho’ (pronounced ‘Kar-keh Hoy-hoar’) to better reflect the Kaipara dialect.

It would be easy (and tempting) to discuss and debate public access in the forest forever, but we are loathed to endlessly revisit this. Now and again we will respond if there is something new to be added or clarified but generally, we hope and trust that people will respect us as a private landowner and business. We know we won’t meet the wants of all the wider public who would like to have unfettered access to the forest, but this posting sets out again why we are acting as we are. We will take note of reasonable suggestions but will generally consider these in our own way and time as we manage the large, complex beast that is Woodhill Forest.

This easement is open from 8 am and closed at 8 pm daily, unless the bombing range is active or there are forestry operations in the area. If in doubt, please check the notices on this webpage and on the Woodhill Forest information line 09 420 9566 ext 0 or contact NZDF Whenuapai on 09 417 7000.

Public access easement to Muriwai Beach via Rimmer Road

This easement is normally open from 6.30 am and closed at 6 pm during the winter season and 9 pm in summer.

Please note the Rimmer Road horse gate is locked.

The Restall Road gate to access the horse park

This gate is normally open from 6.30 am and closed at 6 pm during the winter season and 8 pm in summer.

Horse riding is only permitted within the horse park boundaries.

Vehicles left in the forest after hours will be towed at the owner’s expense or a release fee will be charged by forest security.

Security Contact Details:

First Security – 0800 277 697 (Restall Road gate)

Black Hawk Security – 027 535 5770 (Rimmer Road gate)

INFORMATION LINE

09 420 9566 ext 0

Hancock Forest Management New Zealand 09 470 1300 or 09 283 9019 after hours
If you witness any suspicious activity in the forest or on the beach, please phone the Crimestoppers line on 0800-555-111 or report the incident on 09-839-0600